Category Archives: The Castanet Club

The Castanet Club Comes to YOU!

Maynard brings the colour and movement that was The Castanet Club 1982-1991 into your home (for 61 very odd minutes)*.

Videos and songs from Castanet Club archives, as well as some photos even we’ve never seen. The Castanets make themselves at home at your place. See the Newcastle Museum exhibition from afar, close up and live from Maynard International Studios. Plus videos of a few of the artists that influenced The Castanet Club.

Using only sticky tape and a Gestetner machine see what Maynard can do with some really old photo slides and VHS tapes.

*show may not go as planned. Some viewers may be underwhelmed.

Here is the first show from Saturday 17th July, The Castanet Club Comes to YOU!

Audience outside original Castanet Club 1982
Audience outside original Castanet Club 1982

Watch the second (and final) Castanet Club Comes to You! from 31st July.

Download your free 18 month 2021 -2022 Castanet Club calendar here.

The Castanet Club 2021 -2022 calendar

Your 18 month Castanet Club calendar is here for you to enjoy and print out. You can see The Castanet Club exhibition at Newcastle Museum July 11th through to October 2nd 2021.

Download your calendar here.

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How about some out of context quotes about The Castanet Club 1982 – 1991 from the people that were there.

The only full colour book about The Castanet Club is now available.

Steve Abbott (Johnny Goodman) – “If you make friends with the audience before the show, it makes it harder for them to dislike you.” “We were excessively daggy”.

Warren Coleman (Bowling Man) – “We had a show that would work in a pub or a theatre”.

Glenn Butcher (Lance Norton) – “The first show we played outside Newcastle at the Adelaide Fringe festival in 1984 was 3 hours long. We did everything.”

Jane Turner (Kath & Kim) – “When I first saw The Castanet Club at The Last Laugh in Melbourne, I fell in love with Lance Norton’s voice.”

Angela Moore (Betty & Shirley Purvis) – “Shirley Purvis was based on my grandmother from Yowie Bay.”

Mikey (Elvis Presle) – “The Castanet Club never had a bad gig. How many acts can say that?”

Russell Cheek (Tron Wexler & Douggie) – “The greatest comedy cabaret big band in the world that never made any money.”

Jacqueline Amidy (Nastassaja Bassi) – “Everything was much bigger than it should have been.”

Kathy Bluff (Kid Paganini) – “We were always anchored in popular culture and retro.”

John Doyle (Roy Slaven) – “The Castanet Club was larger than the sum of its parts.”

The Castanet Club book cover
The new Castanet Club book

Castanet Club calendars drying on the line
Castanet Club calendars drying on the line

The Castanet Club Exhibition opens at Newcastle Museum July 11th.

Thanks to Tracy Mac and everyone at Newcastle Live Radio for my first interview about the upcoming Castanet Club exhibition at Newcastle Museum that is planned to run from 11th July to October 2nd.

We talk about the little I know about the exhibition, early Castanet Club musical influences and intersection of voyeurism and Romper Room.

The only full colour action packed book on the history of The Castanet Club is out this week. It’s selling like lamingtons at the North Bondi RSL Club.

Listen to the full interview here

Watch the movie trailer for The Castanet Club exhibition at Newcastle Museum that opens on July 11th.

Look busy! Bowling Man is coming.

Warren Coleman, who played Bowling Man in The Castanet Club, drops in to Maynard International Studios to return his VHS player. Can Maynard look like he has a life with only a Barbara Eden photo and a 1982 calendar?

Not a chance, but enjoy this 2021 episode of The Odd Couple.

Warren has had an illustrious career acting, writing, acting some more, writing some more and then editing and writing. Which won him an Academy Award for Happy Feet in 2006.

Warren and Maynard talk about none of this, but if you want the hot ticket to the best Lost In Space and Star Trek episodes we have them for you.

Warren Coleman as Rick in Casablanca. They Came From The Fun Dimension 1981
Warren Coleman as Rick in Casablanca. They Came From The Fun Dimension 1981
Warren Coleman & Maynard
Warren Coleman & Maynard. Castanets are go! Sure, not a great photo, but look, marionettes.

Warren Coleman on IMBD

The Newcastle Museum exhibition The Castanet Club: an exhibition you can dance to! opens on July 11th and continues till October 31st. Come see and hear what it was all about from 1982 – 1991.

Sandman remembers The Castanet Club

The big bumper book in full colour on The Castanet Club

The trailer for the Newcastle Museum exhibition and documentary on The Castanet Club